The Lotus 3-Eleven Is 450bhp Of Track Day Insanity

The old Lotus 2-Eleven was - by pretty much any measure - a bit mad. 252bhp, 666kg, 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds, no windscreen… you get the idea. However, the follow up, the 3-Eleven, ups the ante. By quite some margin.

Rather than use a 1.8-litre four-pot like the old car, the new one has the same Toyota-sourced 3.5-litre V6 that you’ll find in the Evora and Exige. Here, it serves up a massive 450bhp.

With a weight of around 900kg in the ‘Race’ edition (a slightly less bonkers ‘Road’ edition is available too), it’s porkier than the old car, but the massive jump in power means 0-60mph is possible in under three seconds. Top speed? 174mph. If you want to go that fast, we recommend you don a helmet to prevent having your face annihilated: like the 2-Eleven, the 3-Eleven doesn’t have a proper windscreen.

Suspension-wise, there are double wishbones at the front and rear, and Eibach springs all round with adjustable Öhlins dampers. And it’s not just plush suspension that’ll help you go around corners jolly quickly, the aero on the Race version provides 215kg of downforce at 150mph. To put that in perspective, the new Evora 400 produces 32kg at the same speed.

It’s no surprise that the 3-Eleven is the quickest Lotus to lap the company’s Hethel test track thus far, but the high price isn’t much of a surprise either: all this track madness will set you back £82,000. And that’s if you go for the Road version, the Race edition is a heftier £115,200.

Want to get a look up close? It’s on display at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.